cold s'mores for hot days

I haven't touched this blog for over a month...not because I've had any lack of deliciousness in my life (I have a ton of photos piling up on my iPhone with all of the amazing things Jude has made for me in the past month as the bounty at the farmer's markets has exploded with summer), but merely a lack of time. This is the busiest time of year in my work, and between my job and my family there hasn't been a moment to spare. But this is just so darn quick, easy, and tasty, I just had to share!

It's been unbearably hot here lately, plus I've been craving treats that remind me of summer (we just made root beer floats this past weekend)...So I decided to make a cold s'more!

Graham crackers, dark chocolate ice cream, and marshmallow fluff = a s'more you can prepare in a tiny apartment sans-campfire! :) This was actually frighteningly delicious!

Brooklyn Larder sandwiches

I wore Ruby in the Bjorn tonight to run out and take a bus to meet Jude for a quick dinner at Brooklyn Larder (same ownership as Franny's). Their sandwiches are amazing and we picked up some cheese, charcuterie, and homemade gelato (the almond flavor is out-of-control good) for home, too.

Jude's sandwich was salami with pecorino and spicy peppers.



Some house-made lemonade and sauteed spinach with my egg, bacon, and lettuce sando.

chocolates, baby, daddy, and flowers = Happy Mother's Day!

So, I've started running recently (if you know me, you know this is absolutely crazy) to shave off the last of the 65+ pounds that I put on while pregnant with Ruby. I came back from a run this morning (Mother's Day) to find Ruby and Jude still asleep in bed. Too cute.

They got up shortly thereafter and Jude pulled out a box of chocolates that he had sent from Madison, Wisconsin from our favorite chocolatier, Gail Ambrosius. If you consider yourself any sort of chocolate fan, you MUST try her work. She is a flavor genius. No really.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon wandering around the neighborhood with Ruby while Jude worked on cleaning up the house. Then, I came back and our friend, Pauline, was there with a gorgeous Mother's Day bouquet of flowers for me. She took care of Ruby while Jude and I went out to see the new movie, Babies, in the theater and then went out for dinner.

lunch at the Flea...again

My favorite thing to do on a Saturday afternoon is wander around the Brooklyn Flea. This week, I got a steak sandwich at The Good Fork and some passion fruit lemonade from a stand that I can't remember the name of. The sandwich was good, but I ended up just eating the steak by itself in the end because it was too yummy to mask it in so much bread. The Good Fork's meatloaf sandwich is so amazing, though, I think I'll stick to that one next time.





When I got home, Ruby was still asleep just long enough for me to devour this ridiculously delicious homemade candy bar from one of the stalls at the Flea. It's called "The Snacker" and is their take on a Snickers bar. So good!

Ruby LOVES banana "ice cream"

So, I made the mistake of forgetting my lunch at home the other day and then had to pick something up near my office. I got a burrito at Chipotle (ugh) and then ended up spending all of yestersay hospitalized with food poisoning.

Being violently ill is never fun, but even less so when you have to take your breast pump to the hospital and sit up in bed every so often to try to replenish the bottles your baby is having at home in your absence (not that easy to manuever a pump with an IV in your arm).

Anyway, it's almost (almost) comical that I eat commercial fast food so seldomly and here have something for the first time in many months and end up in the hospital. Go figure.

Anyway, today I am eating only bland things (B.R.A.T. diet while my tummy heals), so I made some banana "ice cream" for me and Ruby. I liked mine. She LOVED hers.

easiest and healthiest banana "ice cream" ever

Okay, so I haven't gotten to have straight-up cow dairy in months because of Ruby's allergy. The things I miss the most are pizza and ice cream. My friend Tam wrote about this dairy-free banana ice cream on her blog a while back and I meant to try it...but, of course, didn't get around to it and then totally forgot. Then, last night my friend Maggie posted this on Facebook and raved about it and I decided to give it a try. This is also a perfect dessert to make for kids who love ice cream--it's quick and easy to make and healthy for the munchkins!

We happened to have some bananas that were well past their prime (ie. they would have found their way to the garbage can because there's zero chance I'd have gotten around to making banana bread), so I sliced them up and popped them in the freezer.

They only need to be in there for 1-2 hours, until they're frozen solid. Then, just dump them in the food processor and start it up. At first it gets crumbly and weird, but just keep scraping the sides down and keep going...

Then, like magic, it suddenly starts to get creamy. I swear to you, it's the exact texture of ice cream! It's good by itself, but I added a dallop of peanut butter. Jude says next time we should toss in a bit of rum.

We gobbled this up in no time and I was left wishing I had more bananas. I feel like this is more of a magic trick than anything else...It's like waving a magic wand and turning your nasty old bananas into a delicious ice cream. I highly recommend this (just maybe not to my oldest brother who hates bananas so much that he once waited outside my apartment in Chicago because he refused to come in after I had made a banana smoothie that morning and he could smell it in my kitchen).

pasta-bean-broccoli rabe soup and fresh asparagus salad

Jude had some broccoli rabe and some asparagus from the Union Square farmer's market to use, so he made a nice spring soup-and-salad take. The soup was a variation of something he always does for us. It's chicken stock with canneloni beans (cooked from dry in water with pork bones), onions, broccoli rabe, macaroni, and bread crumbs (cooked on the stove).

He boiled the asparagus and dressed lightly in dressing.

He made Ruby some asparagus in the food processor, too, but he skinned hers first because he thought she might not be able to digest the outside of it.

Ruby wasn't so sure about this.

But then she got into the spirit.